Parking regulations are enacted for multiple purposes. Purposes for which parking regulations are enacted and enforced include, generating revenue for the appropriate authorities, easing congestion on roadways, facilitating vehicle turnover and hence improving foot traffic for business owners, and for controlling parking on residential streets.
By regulating the parking of vehicles on roadways, the appropriate governing authorities attempt to allow for a more orderly flow of traffic. Many authorities allow for parking on roadways at certain times of the day and or week. Motorists are often required to pay a fee to park on the roadway at allowable times, which is usually based on an hourly fee structure. Fee for use systems generally rely on parking meter technology. Parking meters are generally installed so that they are located beside each parking spot that is associated with a fee for use system. A motorist rents time from the parking meter by adding currency to the meter. The parking meter then displays the amount of time for which a vehicle may be parked in a specific parking space. While many people have grown accustomed to the use of parking meters, parking meters are difficult to upkeep and expensive to install, as each parking space requires a parking meter.
Many city authorities have begun to use other technologies to replace parking meters. One such technology involves the use of a user purchasing a ticket from a centralized machine that may be found at specific locations near a group of parking spaces. When the appropriate currency is deposited into the machine, the centralized machine prints a ticket, which sets out the time until which a vehicle may parked in that location. The motorist displays the parking ticket in the vehicle such that it is visible to a parking enforcement officer.
In order to enforce fee for use systems, parking enforcement officers are relied upon. The parking enforcement officer monitors each vehicle parked in each parking space, by either checking the parking meter, or the parking ticket displayed. This requires a great deal of manual effort, and the parking enforcement officer's efforts are often hampered by weather conditions, leaving the enforcement officer prone to injury as they are continuously walking between vehicles. The use of parking enforcement officers is also inefficient, as a parking enforcement officer is only able to cover a limited number of cars in a given shift.
Along with areas in which city authorities allow parking based on a fee for use system, there are areas where city authorities allow parking during certain time periods of the day or week for limited durations. These areas may be low-density areas, such as residential areas, or other areas that do not warrant the expense associated with setting up and administering a fee for use system. However, parking in these areas must also be regulated to ensure for ease of traffic flow and to partially generate revenue. In areas that allow for parking for limited durations only, parking enforcement officers administer the regulation of parking enforcement in these areas. As there is generally no fee associated with use of these parking areas, the parking enforcement officers will monitor the length of time for which a vehicle is parked in order to determine whether the allowable time period has been exceeded. One such method of monitoring the length of time for which a vehicle is parked, involves the use of a method knows as “wheel chalking”. Wheel chalking involves the use of temporary marks that are made by chalk on the tire of the vehicle and or the roadway. The parking enforcement officer returns to the vehicles that has had its wheel (tire) chalked after a set period of time (usually longer than the allowable parking duration) and determines, based on the chalk marks, whether the vehicle has been moved. If the enforcement officer determines that the vehicle has not been moved, and has therefore exceeded the allowable parking duration, the enforcement officer issues a ticket. The process by which an officer determines whether a vehicle has moved is very labour intensive and inefficient, and only a few cars may be monitored regularly.
As a result, automated mechanisms have been developed to determine whether a vehicle is parked in the same location as it previously was. Such automated mechanisms in order to determine the identity of the vehicle rely on the recognition of the vehicle's license plates.
License plate recognition is prone to be inefficient for many reasons. License plate recognition involves taking images of the license plate and is subject to poor image resolution as the license plate may be too far away or at too acute of an angle from the camera taking the picture. Poor lighting conditions and reflections are two other reasons why license plate recognition proves to be an inefficient method to rely on when attempting to uniquely identify vehicles. These difficulties when combined with the natural dirt, sleet or snow that may cover the license plate, make the unique identification of vehicles that much more difficult. Also, many motorists attempt to devise methods of disguising their license plates by not placing them in the proper location, or by placing reflective coatings on them that are designed to distort images that are taken of these plates.
Therefore, there is a need for an improved system and method for detecting parking infractions.